Love of a daughter
by whenthemarshmallowmettheslayer
Summary: "and yet, so far at least we have yet to figure out what you gain from this." It's a question as well as statement. A chance to explain, to come clean on why she - a unknown Sith- had assassinated they're precious, beloved Chancellor (what fools). But how could you come clean when there is so much blood on her hands? Never-mind the sins and blood on Vader and Luke's -
1. Chapter 1

"Why do Sith do anything?" She asks him, taunts him all the while searching his eyes, face, aura for anything that resembles that of her father.

It's not just seeing him without his life support that unnerves her. It's the fact he's alive, he's infront of her but that he doesn't know who she was.

Who she was to him.

And it hurts more than being left alone in her galaxy, in her time because he had been murdered.

"Because of power," Anakin answer immediately. And here she had been told that Sith only dealt in absolutes. She apparently had been missed informed.

Leia snorts. If her mother (the one who raised her during her early childhood, the one who lied to her) was here she would be so disappointed in her acting so unlike a Princess that she had once been. But she wasn't here. Her father (her real one - not the one who adopted her) had killed her along with her husband (Leia's adopted father) for such transgressions against him.

Anakin (she can only call, to think of him as Anakin because calling him father hurt too much even for her - who had once been a girl that endured her original family being slaughtered in font of her by her own father) looks ready to snap back at her but Obi-Wan sends him one look and Anakin holds back.

Her father had never explained why he hated Obi-Wan so much when he had been alive but if Leia had to make an educated guess it was because that Obi-Wan was a reminder -albeit a painful in memory and ass when it came to that Rebellion that he helped nourish and grow until it actually became a threat. A threat that only became worse when that smuggler/hired x-wing pilot Han Solo had destroyed the Death Star in one shot because of the purposeful flaw Galen Erso had created.

She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath in. Trying to draw strength so not be overwhelmed. The grief was bad enough without thinking of Solo; a man Leia might have loved in another life or if she had been given the actually chance to.

There had been something about that man...but even smugglers hired by the Rebels were given the same punishment as a Rebel with have been dealt with. Especially when said smuggler had destroyed such an important weapon to the Empire.

She snaps out of thoughts, of her painful past to listen to Obi-Wan speaking.

"and yet, so far at least we have yet to figure out what you gain from this." It's a question as well as statement. A chance to explain, to come clean on why she - a unknown Sith- had assassinated they're precious, beloved Chancellor (what fools). But how could you come clean when there is so much blood on your hands? Never-mind the sins and blood on Vader and Luke's when her family had been alive.

When she answers it's not because she's announcing her transgressions in hope that her heavy, dirty soul might be saved. One couldn't repent when they didn't feel guilt for their sin.

"For the love of a daughter." Leia pauses and looks back at Anakin and thinks: I did this to avenge you. After thinking that Leia says one more thing - the last thing actually because she nothing else to say after this.

"And you should have been more careful electing your Chancellor. You never know who is Sith." This has double meaning but she's the only person who knows it.

And she's fine with that ( **no, she isn't** ).

Leia wonders if her younger self and Luke will ever become the monsters like her Luke had and the monster she is.


	2. Chapter 2

In the end it's the necklace that gives it way; gives who she is (to him) away. (He doesn't tell her this but he didn't have to when his gaze lingers, glances back, and sometimes out right stares at her neck.)

She shouldn't have been surprised at all. It's what gave her away to her father the first time during that Empire Day Senate party that changed her life forever. It's what got her adoptive family slaughtered a few days before her birthday. It's what got Alderaan blown up as soon as the Death Star was finished being built.

She should have got rid of it before she was taken into custody. She hadn't though. Leia has only one tangible thing of her deceased mother and it's the necklace that she's always worn since she had been gifted it.

It was without a doubt sentimental but where did it say that a Sith could not be occasionally sentimental?

Anakin paces back and forth like animal that has been caged. Leia bites her lip until she tastes her own coppery blood. The scene reminds her so much of when her father would stride back and forth his cape billowing behind him as he contemplated who he should force choke in anger.

Her heart doesn't ache in nostalgia, is what she tells herself.

It's a terrible lie.

Finally the man her father once was (and now Vader will never be) stops his pacing.

"Who are you really?" He asks her with so many (to the point she couldn't even begin to count) emotions in his eyes, written on his young but worn face, in his voice.

"I'm Leia as you very well know." Leia. Only Leia.

She hasn't had a last name since she was only a six year old that had just watched helplessly as Vader painted her adoptive parents' (also called by her father as her kidnappers and traitors of the Empire) blood splatter to the floor and paint the walls.

Vader is - no, was her father's Sith name. Skywalker as her last name was unthinkable as keeping Organa as her last name. So Leia was either just Leia or Princess Leia.

While she was no longer Alderaan's little princess she was still a princess her father had told her that dreadful (It shouldn't be dreadful since she was rescued by her lying kidnappers but even after all these years Leia can't hate them. They had loved her like she was their own and that's why she can never find it in her to hate them.) memorable night for her mother had been a Queen of a planet and now their daughter, she, was the Princess of the entire galaxy.

And one day when Leia became a grown up she would help her father and Galen overthrow the hated Emperor and free the galaxy from him. Once they freed the galaxy from the slavery of the Emperor they would free the other slaves and they would rebuild the Empire. (Oh how she wished it had gone down that way.)

Then, Vader would make Leia the Queen of the galaxy because Vader was many things and could do many things but politics were not one of those things. Her father utterly loathed anything political.

What really mattered was that he was freed from the Emperor, he would rule with his family like it always was meant to be, and there were no more slaves.

(It could be said that by Vader teaching Leia the dark side of the force made her a slave but they obviously didn't know her. Leia was not a slave. She was a control freak, a bossy leader, a ruler since as long as she could remember and why should the dark side be any different?)

"That's not who you really are though. You're much more than that to me aren't you? So why do you keep lying?" Anakin questioned her with a snarl of anger.

Leia didn't wince or show any sign of freight. Instead she smiled (an oh so wrong, scary smile).

Her father, Darth Vader, was still there. He hadn't been erased from existence by her act of revenge. He had just been prolonged from being born.

Anakin Skywalker was close to the edge but he hadn't fallen off the cliff.

"It's bad manners to ask a question you already know," Leia reprimand him simply, casually even, as if this conversation wasn't important.

Anakin Skywalker of this timeline wouldn't fall of the cliff to the dark side in desperation. Leia would make sure of it.

No.

Anakin Skywalker would be guided into the dark side instead of falling.

After all falling made one injured and why should she let her father be injured when she could simply hold his hand and lead the way?

* * *

 **1.) The title is from the song Love of a daughter by Demi Lovato.**

 **2.) The song to listen to for this fic is Heavy dirty soul by Twenty One Pilots.**

 **3.) I've been wanting to do a time travel fic where a Sith Luke ends back in time and kills Palpatine and I did ..sort of end up writing it after all this time but it, obviously, ended up being Leia. Also, I couldn't help but throw in a part where Leia and Han are still attracted (and infuriated) to by each other even when they're enemies.**

 **4.) Kudos if you know who Galen is without having to google it.**


End file.
